CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I told them everything. Everything I could remember at least. Tony, Steve, and Natasha believed me because they'd been there when all this started. They were there when I first got here, they were there when I started to get a handle on my powers. They knew. But Bilbo, Sharon, T'Challa, and Sam were all in various stages of disbelief and uncomprehending. Sam, at least, was a little more interested than the others.

I used the shirts and the buttons and cups as visual aids. I asked if I could use a DVD player of some sort in the meeting room to play the movie. With Sharon's help, I got it going. Bilbo couldn't stop staring at the screen. Things that had happened were being portrayed on film by people who were not the people in that room but looked very much like the people in that room.

As the movie played, I explained what had actually happened with the bombing and that Zemo was the real culprit and was behind everything. While I was talking, I turned to T'Challa and told him that I was horribly sorry about his dad, but as Bilbo made it very clear, I wouldn't have been able to stop the bombing from happening.

"Does this movie show proof that Zemo is the mastermind behind all this?" Bilbo asked.

I nodded and skipped the DVD ahead. I stopped it at the scene when Tony was in the chopper and headed toward the prison in the middle of the ocean, the Raft. I let the scene play, which explained everything. The real psychologist that had been called to assess Bucky, how that psychologist was dead, and how, when the psychologist's body was found, they found prosthetics and a wig that was made to look like Bucky.

"Shit," Bilbo muttered. He practically ran out of the room and started barking orders at people.

"Why Bucky?" Steve asked.

Isn't it obvious?" Tony asked.

Steve glared at him. He opened his mouth to say something but I interrupted.

"Left to his own devices and without HYDRA behind him, Bucky hasn't done anything for two years," I said, pausing the movie. "Classic puppet versus puppet master scenario."

"I don't like that you called him a puppet," Steve said.

"I'm not wrong." I skipped ahead to one of the final scenes, the one between T'Challa and Zemo.

I let the scene play. It was sad, but I hoped it would make T'Challa feel a little better, especially now that the man responsible for his father's death was captured and couldn't hurt anyone else. When the scene was over, I paused the movie.

T'Challa looked at me. I could see the same deep sadness I'd seen in Eli after our parents died. It looked different than the sadness I'd seen in Steve. He knew Peggy was going to die eventually, but when someone dies suddenly, it's a whole different kind of hurt.

"I know what it's like to lose a parent," I said. "I lost both of mine four years ago, now. It's easy to be angry and to want the guy responsible to pay for what he did, but like Movie T'Challa said, vengeance can consume you. It's better to let go."

T'Challa nodded. "Thank you." He paused. "This was a strange way of attaining peace, but I am grateful for it regardless."

"Ooh, they're coming out with a Blank Panther movie next year," I said. "Next year in my world, I mean. I'm really excited. It's going to be so good."

"If you would do me a favor and not tell my sister about this movie," T'Challa said. "I cannot imagine what she would do." He chuckled a little and I smiled.

But I was so going to show his sister the movie.

"Can I keep this?" Tony asked, holding up a hard plastic cup with his face on it.

"No," I said.

"Can I buy it from you?"

"No," I said. "It has sentimental value. Sentimental things are priceless."

Tony narrowed his eyes at me. "Spoken like someone who doesn't know how much money I have."

"If I asked you for a million dollars for that stupid cup…" I started.

"I can literally write you a check right now for a million dollars for this stupid cup," Tony said.

I laughed. "No, Tony. It's sentimental. And technically it's Eli's."

"Do one of those cups have me on it?" Sam asked.

"You also can't have your cup," I said.

"I was just asking," Sam grumbled, but he was staring at the cups longing.

"You weren't in the movie," Natasha said. "And you're not on any of the cups or the shirts."

"I don't exist in the Marvel comics at all or in the movies," I said. "There's not even a character remotely similar to me, not that I know of at least."

"So, you're telling us that we're not real?" Sharon asked. Aside from helping set up the DVD, she hadn't said or done much, just watched quietly from the corner.

"Not-real people can't feel being stabbed," I said. "Do you want me to stab you and see if you feel it?"

There was a chorus of "Mavis's" from Steve, Sam, and Natasha.

"Oh, I'd feel it," Sharon said.

"Then you're real," I said. "You're not real in the world where I come from. It's really weird, but don't have an existential crisis on me now."

Sharon snickered.

"Why were we fighting?" Steve asked.

"What?" I asked.

"The movie's called Civil War," Steve explained. "In that part with T'Challa and Zemo, there was a part there in the middle where Bucky, Tony, and I were fighting. And Zemo wanted to take down the Avengers, but he targeted Bucky specifically. Why?"

I blinked.

Bilbo came into the meeting room and looked around. "Zemo has been apprehended. He didn't confess in any explicit terms but we got him, regardless."

"Did he get to Bucky?" I asked.

"No, we got to him just before," Bilbo said. He looked me up and down. "It seems that you were right. But you broke a lot of laws in your pursuit and being right about everything doesn't change that."

I shrugged. "You'll never take me alive." And then I stuck out my tongue at him.

Bilbo started telling everyone what was going to happen next. We were going to stay in Berlin until we were allowed to leave. If I was lucky, Secretary Ross would be nice to be since I gave them the name of a terrorist and he wouldn't arrest me, only put me on probation. The Sokovia Accords were going to continue as planned.

"And the world keeps turning," Bilbo finished.

"What about Bucky?" Steve asked.

"Bucky is a terrorist and a criminal," Bilbo said. "He'll be dealt with accordingly."

"What if there was a way to take the Winter Soldier programming out of his head?" I asked.

"No," Bilbo said. "Even if that were possible, he's still a criminal. Crimes were committed, Ms. Stewart, and he was the one who committed them. He's going to prison for a very long time." With that, Bilbo left.

"Leave it, Mavis," Natasha said, walking up behind me and putting a hand on my shoulder. "For now, just leave it. Maybe if we're good we can work something out. It means something that he was by himself and didn't do anything, it's just a matter of getting everyone else to see that."

"How were you planning on getting the Winter Soldier programming out of his head?" Steve asked. "And you still haven't answered why we were fighting and why Zemo was targeting Bucky."

"To answer your first question," I said. "At the end of the movie the Wakandans take Bucky in and I'm pretty sure they fix him. As for your second question, I'll tell you later."

Natasha squeezed my shoulder and left the meeting room.

I went back to the table and grabbed all the Civil War stuff, including the DVD. There was still a lot more to do, like the Accords, which Steve still didn't want to sign but Tony absolutely did. And there was the whole thing about Bucky and Tony's parents. But that could wait for another day. I had successfully avoided the great Avengers break up. All was right with the world.

For now.

Author's note: As promised, Chapter 29! Thank you all so much for reading! Have a great rest of your day!